Peak
74
Weeks
8
Score
376
Chart Year
1989
The accompanying music video for "Lullaby" was filmed at a sound stage in London, England.[12] It features Robert in bed, in a dream sequence, and the rest of the band playing tin soldiers who sporadically appear throughout the music video for a few seconds.[12] The music video, during which Smith plays both the cannibalistic "spiderman" mentioned in the lyrics and his intended victim, concludes with Smith being swallowed by what appears to be a giant spider.[12] The music video, directed by Tim Pope and edited by Peter Goddard,[13] won British Video of the Year at the 1990 Brit Awards
"Lullaby" is based on a recurring nightmare Robert Smith had as a child where he was eaten by a giant spider; Smith says the song is about the fear of sleep. Lullabies are meant to soothe children to sleep, but some of them have surprisingly catastrophic endings. The most famous lullaby, "Rockabye Baby," ends: When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall And down will come baby, cradle and all According to Robert Smith, the lullabies his father sang to him had similarly tragic endings. "There would be something like 'Sleep now, pretty baby,' and then there'd be an 'Or you won't wake up at all' coda to the song," he said. The 1990 Brit award winning music video was inspired by David Lynch's 1977 debut horror movie Eraserhead. This song had the Cure's best chart placing in the UK. Robert Smith sings in the outro: And I feel like I'm being eaten By a thousand million shivering furry holes And I know that in the morning I will wake up in the shivering cold And the Spiderman is always hungry According to the video's director, Tim Pope, these lines were a reference to The Cure frontman's drug-fueled past. He explained in the NME: "On one level, there is this stupidity and humor, but beneath that there are all Smiffy's psychological obsessions and claustrophobia." Tying in with the song's lyrics, the music video opens with Smith lying in bed and watching the seconds tick by on a giant clock as he tries to fall asleep - until a giant spider creeps in and makes a meal out of him. "I refused to have the real spider on me," Smith told Select Magazine in 1991. "They had a bloke there with an antidote and I tried but I couldn't."
On candy stripe legs the spiderman comes Softly through the shadow of the evening sun Stealing past the windows of the blissfully dead Looking for the victim shivering in bed Searching out fear in the gathering gloom and Suddenly a movement in the corner of the room And there is nothing I can do When I realize with fright That the spiderman is having me for dinner tonight Quietly he laughs and shaking his head Creeps closer now Closer to the foot of the bed And softer than shadow and quicker than flies His arms are all around me and his tongue in my eyes Be still be calm be quiet now my precious boy Don't struggle like that or I will only love you more For it's much too late to get away or turn on the light The spiderman is having you for dinner tonight And I feel like I'm being eaten By a thousand million shivering furry holes And I know that in the morning I will wake up In the shivering cold And the spiderman is always hungry
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dec 2, 1989 | 85 | 41 |
| 2 | Dec 9, 1989 | 76 | 50 |
| 3 | Dec 16, 1989 | 74 | 52 |
| 4 | Dec 23, 1989 | 80 | 46 |
| 5 | Dec 30, 1989 | 80 | 46 |
| 6 | Jan 6, 1990 | 82 | 44 |
| 7 | Jan 13, 1990 | 85 | 41 |
| 8 | Jan 20, 1990 | 97 | 29 |